Oct. 12, 2013

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Tressa Evans: Teacher of the Year: Tressa Evans: Teacher of the Year

Meet Tressa Evans

• Jobs: Early childhood special education teacher at Bacon Elementary, Poudre School District instructional coach and behavioral analyst • Recently named: Rotary Clubs of Fort Collins’ 2012 Teacher of the Year. • Knew she wanted to be a teacher when: During her senior year of undergraduate school at CSU when she interned at a residential facility for at-risk youth. Before that, she thought she’d become an optometrist because she always had poor vision. • Family: Husband, Shawn; sons, Aiden, 13, and Avery, 11. • Hobbies: Spending time with her family, hiking and biking. She started road cycling last year and recently completed her first “long ride” in Pedal the Plains, which for her was a 175-mile trek across southeastern Colorado. • How others described her: Bubbly, a role model, patient, persistent, has a can-do attitude and always does her job with a smile.

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Even decades later, Mayme Flynn can close her eyes and see Tressa Evans playing and sharing with others in her classroom at Miss Pat’s preschool in Lamar.

“Such a doll, such a little doll she was,” Flynn said of the “leader in a tiny little body” who grew up to become an early childhood special education teacher at Bacon Elementary. And though they don’t get to talk as often as either one prefers, Flynn gets updates from Evans’ parents and knows her former student “has all the makings of a good teacher.”

Last week, Rotary Clubs of Fort Collins formally recognized that belief, naming Evans the 2012 Teacher of the Year.

“Tressa models what a teacher should be,” said Bacon Principal Joe Horky, unable to recall a time in his five years at the school when Evans hasn‘t come to work with a smile on her face or a “can-do attitude,” even in the face of tough situations.

The award, he said, is a testament to her pushing the boundaries of early childhood education at a time when perceptions are still that teaching preschool is somehow less-intensive than other grade levels.

“It’s not come to school, eat graham crackers, play with your friends, take a nap and go home,” Horky said. Rather, it’s about following stringent state standards and prepping young children to be able to sit still, communicate, get along with others and be prepared to be successful in kindergarten.

Evans knew she wanted to become a teacher during her senior year of college, as she neared graduation from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

An internship at Larico Youth Homes, a former Fort Collins residential treatment facility, gave Evans a unique view of the “phenomenal relationship” between one of the teachers and her students. With that, Evans veered off the path of becoming an optometrist and set out to obtain a master’s in early childhood special education from the University of Northern Colorado in 1998.

Degree in hand, her teaching career began at Walter Bracken Elementary in Las Vegas. A 6-foot fence surrounded the school at which police chases were common and home lives were tough for students of parents who lacked trust in the educational system — the result of their own bad experiences.

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She won trust, however, when their children started to enjoy learning.

Nine years ago, Evans made her foray into Poudre School District. Since then, she also has become an instructional coach; worked with a team that wrote the guiding document for educating students with autism; and had her classroom named a model site, as part of a University of Colorado Denver program that addressed inclusive education for young kids with autism.

Each morning, one can find Evans in her classroom at Bacon Elementary working, with a handful of preschool students on the autism spectrum. The task isn’t always easy, she and others admit, working with students who struggle to communicate their needs and often naturally shy away from human contact.

But it’s a challenge she confronts with never-ending patience and persistence, said Gina Harris, a special education paraprofessional who works with Evans. Harris pointed to several examples where Evans set out to help a student sound out letter sounds or make eye contact with others, making a “big deal” out of their accomplishments.

In class Oct. 1, Evans sat on a tiny chair in front of four boys in equally tiny chairs as she read “Happy and Sad, Grouchy and Glad,” acting out what it means to to feel various emotions. Each boy struggled with something different — whether it was sitting still or paying attention — but Evans engaged each in turn, celebrating when they overcame their personal challenges.

For her, those celebrations embody why she does the work. Work she shared in a poem before accepting her Rotary award at a luncheon Sept. 24 :

“Doing what I do now.

From ‘Please help us, he isn’t talking’

‘We don’t know what to do’

To ‘He finally said his first word

just think what the future holds’

Teaching what I teach now.”

In the end, it’s about watching children move onto kindergarten and holding back tears of pride and joy as she waives goodbye.